Society's ChildS


Bad Guys

UK: Police Under Attack as Bullet Claimed to Have Been Shot by Victim is "Police Issue"

Sandra Laville, Paul Lewis, Vikram Dodd and Caroline Davies
The Guardian, UK
Mon, 08 Aug 2011 00:00 UTC
london riot
© Lewis Whyld/PAThe Carpetright shop on Tottenham High Road, north London, in the early hours of of Sunday morning. The 1930s building was gutted by the blaze.
Initial ballistics tests suggest bullet lodged in officer's radio during incident in Tottenham was police issue

Doubts have emerged over whether Mark Duggan, whose death sparked the weekend's Tottenham riots, was shot in an exchange of fire with police as fresh violence broke out in London.

The Guardian understands that initial ballistics tests on a bullet, found lodged in a police radio worn by an officer during Thursday's incident, suggested it was police issue - and therefore had not been fired by Duggan.

The revelation came as trouble erupted in Enfield, north London, with a police car being vandalised and windows smashed in its high street.

On Saturday night 26 police officers were injured, eight requiring hospital treatment, in clashes with around 300 rioters in Tottenham which saw buildings and vehicles torched, shops looted and residents forced to flee their burning homes.
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Attention

UK: Tottenham Riot: Sustained Looting Follows Night of Violence

Paul Lewis
The Guardian
Sun, 07 Aug 2011 15:54 UTC
Tottenham riot, London
© Lewis Whyld/PAIn Tottenham, riot police patrol the streets in the early hours of Sunday 7 August.
Looters use cars and shopping trolleys to carry away stolen goods as disturbances spread to other areas of Haringey

There were scenes of chaos in the early hours of Sunday morning as sustained looting spread from Tottenham to other nearby areas of Haringey.

By midnight police managed to secure a 200-metre stretch of the Tottenham High Road, scene of some of the worst rioting on Saturday night.

But as fire engines entered the street, and began putting out blazing cars and buildings, the rioters spread north and west through back-streets. To the north, at Tottenham Hale, Aldi supermarket was ransacked and set on fire. So too was a nearby carpet shop, causing a huge blaze.
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USA

America's Cratering Economy

Steve Lendman
La.IndyMedia
Sun, 07 Aug 2011 15:09 UTC
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Slow-motion fiscal collapse perhaps explains its current state after decades of mismanagement, accelerated under Bush and Obama. The chickens are now coming home to roost big time, hitting ordinary people hardest, suffering under a protracted Main Street Depression. More on that below.

Last April 18, Standard & Poor (S & P) downgraded its rating on America to negative, saying:
S & P "affirmed its 'AAA' long-term and 'A-1+' short-term sovereign credit ratings on the US. (It also) revised its outlook on the long-term rating of the US sovereign to negative from stable....(W)e now believe (US strengths may) not fully offset the credit risks over the next two years at the 'AAA' level...."

"More than two years after the beginning of the recent crisis, US policymakers have still not agreed on how to reverse recent fiscal deterioration or address longer-term fiscal pressures."
S & P analyst Nikola Swann added that from 2003 - 2008, US debt ranged from 2 - 5% of GDP. However, it ballooned to over 11% in 2009 "and has yet to recover."

Swann also warned of "a one in three chance that the US could lose its AAA rating in two years because of its mounting debt."

S & P's entire statement can be accessed through the following link.
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Heart - Black

Church Child Protection Chief Caught with 4,000 Child Porn Pictures

Geoffrey Lakeman
Daily Mirror
Sun, 31 Jul 2011 09:00 UTC
Christopher Jarvis leaves court
© From Daily Mirror articleChristopher Jarvis leaves court
A child protection official for the Catholic Church has been caught with 4,000 pictures of child porn.

Father-of-four Christopher Jarvis was arrested after uploading pictures of children being abused to a website.

Married Jarvis, 49, a former social worker, was employed by the church following sex scandals about pervert priests.

His job was to monitor church groups to ensure paedophiles did not gain access to children in the church's congregations.

But he was caught by police in March with more than 4,000 child porn images on his home computer and his work laptop.

He admitted 12 counts of making, ­possessing and distributing indecent ­images when he appeared before ­magistrates in Plymouth and is likely to face jail when he returns to court for sentencing next month.
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Heart - Black

Death of a campaigner: corrupt Indian officials blamed in killing of activist

Dean Nelson
The Telegraph, UK
Sun, 07 Aug 2011 02:58 UTC
Arup Kalita's body was found this week, his skeletal remains finally recovered from the shallow depths a pond in the small village of Kukurmara in India's north-eastern fringes.

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© UPEN/DEKA/BISWAJIT DASArup Kalita, left, and his belongings that were found with his remains
His mobile phone, motor bike keys, driving licence and trousers were all discovered along with his bones.

How he got there was no surprise to his grieving family. They knew the 29-year-old anti-corruption campaigner was dead when he disappeared in August last year. They had heard he had been beaten, tortured and then his corpse dumped into the pond where it was apparently trampled deep into the mud below by an elephant.

But what may be surprising to some is the location of his resting place - in the official grounds of Assam's forestry department.

His family and supporters say that location is the key. All believe he has paid the price for India's failure to tackle corruption at all levels.

Mr Kalita's apparent murder makes him the 18th anti-corruption crusader to be killed in India since 2008. Others include several campaigners who used Right to Information legislation to uncover corruption in government aid schemes for India's poorest, one of the country's leading crime reporters who exposed Mumbai's 'diesel mafia,' and a civil servant who was burned alive by oil smugglers.
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Sherlock

Is this Jack the Ripper? Scotland Yard's Chief Inspector Frederick Abberline named as serial killer in new investigation


The Daily Mail, UK
Sat, 06 Aug 2011 07:46 UTC
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Culprit? Chief Inspector Frederick Abberline has been named as Jack the Ripper by a Spanish investigator
  • Spanish handwriting expert claims to solve 120-year-old murder mystery
Suspects have ranged from a member of Royal Family to a local butcher - but it is now claimed that Jack the Ripper was the very detective who led the hunt for the killer.

Chief Inspector Frederick Abberline of Scotland Yard was the man who murdered and mutilated at least five women in Victorian East London - at least according to Spanish writer Jose Luis Abad, 84.

He makes the claim in his book Jack the Ripper: The Most Intelligent Murderer in History, published in Spain this week.

Mr Abad is a handwriting expert and has compared Abberline's writing with that in the Ripper's diary - which surfaced in Liverpool in 1992.

Mr Abad, says: 'I have no doubt Abberline was the Ripper. Handwriting does not lie.'

The diary was attributed to a Liverpool cotton dealer called James Maybrick - whom others have identified as the Ripper.

But many experts say the diary is a hoax. Mr Abad believes it is real, but that the author was Abberline, not Maybrick.

Other theories link the Ripper murders to Queen Victoria's grandson, Prince Albert Victor.

The detective was placed in charge of the Ripper investigations following the murder of Mary Ann Nichols in August 1888. He died in 1929 aged 86 at his home in Bournemouth.
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Che Guevara

Ukraine: Tymoshenko Backers Start Sit-In in Kiev


Press TV
Sat, 06 Aug 2011 01:43 UTC
Supporters of former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko have started an indefinite sit-in to protest her detention until she is released.

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© unknownSupporters of former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko gather outside the Kiev court where her trial is being held on August 5, 2011.
Over 100 supporters, including members of parliament, have pitched about 30 tents near the courthouse in Kiev, vowing to continue their sit-in until Tymoshenko is released, AFP reported.

Meanwhile Tymoshenko's right-hand man, Olexander Turchinov, has said the protests could lead to a repeat of the 2004 Orange Revolution that could be victorious by September.

Ukrainian prosecutors have charged Tymoshenko with abuse of office, accusing her of illegally forcing state energy company Naftogaz to sign a gas supply contract with Russia in 2009.
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Bizarro Earth

New 5-Star Hotel in Blockaded Gaza Amid Poverty

Diaa Hadid
The Associated Press
Sat, 06 Aug 2011 00:00 UTC
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© The Associated Press / Adel HanaIn this photo taken Friday, July 15, 2011, showing a general vista of Gaza beach and the Mediterranean Sea below the balcony of Gaza Strip's first five-star Arcmed Al Mashtal hotel in Gaza City, which was recently opened. The eight-storey structure is an anomaly in Gaza, where most local people live in poverty and ride donkey-driven carts past the opulent luxury of this hotel which remains mostly unused by tourists who don't seem to be attracted to visit Gaza.

The Gaza Strip's first five-star hotel gleams with marble floors, five luxury restaurants and a breezy cafe overlooking the territory's white sandy beaches and sparkling blue Mediterranean Sea. The only thing missing are guests.

Nearly all of the newly opened hotel's 222 rooms, decked out with ornate metal-worked lamps, flat screen televisions, oversized beds and sea views, sit empty. The tourists whom the developers expected to flood to Gaza when they launched the project 13 years ago are nowhere to be seen. Local residents, most of them living in poverty, can only dream of staying in the gleaming complex.

The eight-story structure is an anomaly in Gaza, yet it cannot escape its surroundings. Residents riding donkey-driven carts occasionally trot by. Women cannot swim in the pool, in a nod to conservative Gaza tradition. There is no alcohol - banned by Hamas in line with Islamic law. On a recent day, two women in conservative Islamic headscarves and loose gowns sipped drinks by the pool, as children splashed inside.

Earlier this month, the hotel's developer, Palestinian investment company Padico decided to finally open it. The company, controlled by politically independent billionaire Munib al-Masri, hopes to recover at least some of its costs and hopes that Gaza's knotty problems may finally be solved in the coming years.

"Its risky - but we need to have a change in Gaza," said public relations manager Shadi Agha.
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Hardhat

Protesters Throw Fruit at Chile's Rescued Miners

Eva Vergara
The Associated Press
Sun, 07 Aug 2011 01:45 UTC
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© The Associated Press / Luis HidalgoPolice officers scuffle with demonstrators outside a museum that was hosting an event honoring the trapped miners of the San Jose mine, in Copiapo, Chile, Friday Aug. 5, 2011. The protest was directed at Chile's President Sebastian Pinera, who was attending the inauguration of the museum, marking the first anniversary of the mine collapse. The 33 miners survived 69 days, 700 feet deep after an unprecedented and dramatic Oct. 13, 2010 rescue.
It has been a bittersweet anniversary for Chile's rescued miners, who were honored as heroes in their hometown only to come under attack by anti-government protesters who threw fruit and small stones at them, accusing them of being ungrateful, greedy sellouts.

Chilean President Sebastian Pinera and his ministers joined most of the 33 miners Friday at a Catholic Mass and then the inauguration of a regional museum exhibit recognizing their remarkable survival story.

But the events were marred by scuffles between riot police and students, teachers, environmentalists and other miners, all trying to make Pinera bow to their pressure on issues from reforming public education and increasing miners' pay to stopping controversial dams and power plants.

Some of the activists threw oranges and apples at the miners, accusing them of getting too cozy with Pinera's government and trying to cash in on their fame.

The treatment shocked rescued miner Omar Reygadas into silence. His son told The Associated Press in an interview that his father was deeply hurt to be accused of selling out to the government. Other activists shouted that the miners were trying to get rich with their $17 million lawsuit accusing Chile's mine regulator of failing to enforce safety requirements.
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Pistol

US: Teen struck by Ohio campus officer's stun gun dies


The Associated Press
Sun, 07 Aug 2011 01:24 UTC
taser
© Unknown
Police say an 18-year-old attending summer classes at the University of Cincinnati was struck by a campus officer's stun gun and died of cardiac arrest.

Officers received a 911 call about an assault at Turner Hall early Saturday. The university's assistant police chief, Jeff Corcoran, tells The Cincinnati Enquirer that the teenage boy approached officers in the dorm hallway, appearing agitated and angry.

Corcoran says officers ordered the teen to back off, but he refused. He was then hit once by an officer's stun gun.

Afterward, the teen appeared incoherent. He went into cardiac arrest after paramedics arrived and was pronounced dead at University Hospital.

The department has suspended the use of stun guns until his cause of death is determined. Authorities are also investigating the original 911 call.
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